Dead spy's Italy contact arrested Mario Scaramella met Mr Litvinenko the day he fell ill Police have arrested an Italian man who met Russian former spy Alexander Litvinenko the day he fell ill from poisoning, Italian news agencies said. The two men met at a London sushi bar on 1 November. Mr Litvinenko died on 23 November from radiation poisoning. Mario Scaramella is being investigated in Italy for arms trafficking and violating state secrets. Scotland Yard said the arrest in Naples was not part of their investigation into Mr Litvinenko's death. Mr Scaramella was arrested on his return from London....

24/12/2006 - 2:18:23 PM Italian who met spy Litvinenko arrested :: latest Police today arrested an Italian security expert who met former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko the day he fell ill from poisoning. Mario Scaramella was arrested in Naples, where he landed on his way back from London, Italian news agencies reported. Rome prosecutors have been investigating Scaramella for violating secrets of his office and possible arms trafficking. Scaramella met Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on November 1, the day the former spy fell ill. On his deathbed on November 23, Litvinenko - a former KGB agent and harsh...

BRITISH investigators believe that Alexander Litvinenko's killers used more than $US10 million of polonium-210 to poison him. Preliminary findings from the post mortem examination on the former KGB spy suggest that he was given more than ten times the lethal dose. Police do not know why the assassins used so much of the polonium-210, and are investigating whether the poison was part of a consignment to be sold on the black market. They believe that whoever orchestrated the plot knew of its effects, but are unsure whether the massive amount was used to send a message - it made it...

Litvinenko 'killed over dossier' Saturday December 16, 06:34 AM An ex-business associate of Alexander Litvinenko has said that the former Russian spy was murdered because of information he held on a powerful Kremlin figure. Ex-spy Yuri Shvets said Mr Litvinenko was commissioned by a reputable UK firm to provide information on Russia. He told BBC Radio 4 that Mr Litvinenko was poisoned after his dossier containing damaging details was deliberately leaked to the high-ranking Moscow figure. Mr Litvinenko died in London on November 23 from polonium-210 radiation poisoning. Mr Shvets said: "I cannot really be 100% sure, but I am...

Russian unit may have got polonium to kill Litvinenko By Duncan Gardham Last Updated: 1:41am GMT 16/12/2006 A special unit of the Russian secret service could have provided the polonium that killed the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, The Daily Telegraph has learned. Sources in Russia have suggested that a secret unit called Department V could have obtained the radioactive substance that has left a trail across Europe. Polonium 210 is only produced in a small number of state-controlled facilities and Department V, also known as Vympel, is charged with guarding Russia's nuclear installations. The "Spetsnaz", or special forces unit...

BERLIN (Reuters) - The head of an organization of former Russian spies was quoted as saying on Thursday Moscow abandoned its policy of assassinating enemies long ago, and that Alexander Litvinenko was probably murdered by criminals. Former KGB agent Valentin Velichko said fellow former agent Litvinenko, who died in London on November 23 from radiation poisoning, was a traitor but was not killed by Moscow. "That was long ago. It belonged to the days of Stalin," Velichko, head of the Veterans of Foreign Intelligence, told Die Welt newspaper in an interview. Millions died under the rule of dictator Josef Stalin.

German investigators say the radioactive polonium-210 used to kill a former Russian spy in London last month would have cost $25 million on the black market. The Berliner Zeitung quoted a police source Wednesday as saying police were investigating the possibility some of Alexander Litvinenko's business activities involved the illegal smuggling of nuclear materials. "We know that there has been a demand for nuclear materials in terrorist circles for several years," the source said. Litvinenko was a former Russian spy who defected to Britain and became an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He died of radiation poisoning in...

MOSCOW - A key witness in the radiation death of former Russian intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko claimed the poisoning took place earlier than is generally believed, according to a newspaper interview published Wednesday. Andrei Lugovoi, also a former Russian intelligence agent, met with Litvinenko to discuss business at London's Millennium Mayfair Hotel on Nov. 1, a few hours before Litvinenko fell ill. But Lugovoi said in an interview with the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that he thinks Litvinenko may have been poisoned two weeks earlier, on the day he and Lugovoi met another business associate, Dmitry Kovtun. Litvinenko, 43, a former...

Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the KGB and its more recent incarnation known as the FSB, is a perfect example of an intelligence officer who transferred his loyalties from his country, and the people he was entrusted to serve, to the â€śenemyâ€ť for reasons other than monetary gain...His areas of expertise included counter-terrorism and organized crime. For reasons unknown, Litvinenko became a supporter of the Islamic terrorists leading the rebellion in the separatist region of Chechnya, despite the fact that they had murdered hundreds of his fellow Russians. [SNIP] The fact that Litvinenko recently died as a result of...

Russia's G8 envoy says speculation surrounding the death of Alexander Litvinenko has caused 'untold damage' to the regime. The admission comes after the focus of the investigation switched to Germany, with police revealing yesterday that one of the key witnesses to Mr Litvinenko's death, Dimitry Kovtun, was contaminated with polonium-210 in Hamburg. That was several days before he met the former Russian spy in a London hotel bar. The German inquiry is focusing on whether Mr Kovtun was in illegal contact with radioactive materials. Igor Shuvalov told Channel 4 News the death was done by someone who wanted to harm...

'Walking Dirty Bomb' Tells of London Meetings By Anna Sadovnikova, Hans Hoyng, Thomas Hüetlin and Uwe Klussmann A few days before he was put in quarantine in a Moscow hospital, Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoi, believed to be one of Scotland Yard's main suspects in the killing of Alexander Litvinenko, spoke to DER SPIEGEL about his meetings with the former spy. Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoi during an interview on Ekho Moskvy radio in Moscow, November 23. Andrei Lugovoi, 40, former KGB agent, currently a kind of mini magnate in the Russian soft drinks industry, is the man British investigators believe left...

MOSCOW, December 11 (RIA Novosti) - The ex-wife of a witness in the case of a murdered former Russian security officer, her two children and boyfriend have been hospitalized in Germany with suspected polonium-210 poisoning, the head of the investigation team in Hamburg said Monday. He said a medical examination will show if their organisms contain a dangerous concentration of the radioactive element. Authorities did not identify them by name. Businessman Dmitry Kovtun met with defector Alexander Litvinenko around the time of his poisoning at the beginning of November. Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin's administration and a...

RUSSIAN prosecutors investigating the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, the former spy who defected to Britain, want to travel to London to question a billionaire Russian exile and a Chechen associate. The move is likely to further strain relations between Russia and Britain, which have been undermined by allegations that the FSB, the former KGB, might be involved in the killing. [...] The Russian investigators' targets are Boris Berezovsky, the London-based billionaire businessman who employed Litvinenko and is a long-time critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Akhmed Zakayev, a Chechen exile the Russians want to extradite on charges of terrorism,...

The rotten heart of Russia By Olga Craig, Andrew Alderson and Helen Womack in Moscow, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 1:22am GMT 10/12/2006Page 1 of 5 Scotland Yard detectives have now had a week of official stonewalling. The British ambassador is being threatened by Right-wing thugs. Frustration and intimidation (and increasingly extortion) have become the norm for anyone doing business in Russia. A Moscow police officer outside the British embassy The terse communiqué should have come as no great surprise to the nine Scotland Yard detectives who flew into Moscow's Domodedovo airport last Monday. As their plane touched down, just after...

LONDON — Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent at the center of an international poisoning mystery, was buried here Thursday, his body still so radioactive that health officials wouldn't let it be displayed at a memorial service. As friends and colleagues gathered to recite eulogies, sing hymns and, once again, denounce the Russian government — which many blame for his death — the intrigue picked up yet another layer: The Russian news agency Interfax announced that a key witness and possible suspect in the case had fallen into a coma in a Moscow hospital hours after being questioned by British...

"Polonium" Restaurant Capitalizes on Ex-KGB Spy Case Business: 5 December 2006, Tuesday. The owners of a restaurant in northern England are having their hands full these days, unexpectedly capitalizing on the death of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko. The reason for the rising popularity of the establishment in Sheffield is in its name - "The Polonium Restaurant". Ever since word broke that the former Russian spy was poisoned with radioactive polonium-210, the place has been fully packed. The Polish owner say the place was not named after the radioactive stuff, but a Polish folk band he played in some 30...

Something to Hide? by TOL 8 December 2006 If the Kremlin's hands are clean in the Litvinenko case, why won't it let British investigators do their work? When Alexander Litvinenko's remains were laid to rest in London's Highgate Cemetery on 7 December, his body was so radioactive that it had to be buried in a specially sealed casket. It will be a lot harder, however, to contain the fallout from the ex-KGB spy's death. As a week filled with a series of bizarre revelations in the Litvinenko case drew to a close, Scotland Yard detectives appeared to be inching tantalizingly...

Police in Germany say they have found indications of radiation in two properties apparently used by a contact of murdered spy Alexander Litvinenko. Dmitry Kovtun, who met the former KGB agent on the day he fell ill, is being treated in hospital in Russia. Police said traces of radiation were found at the Hamburg flat of his ex-wife and at her mother's home outside the city. Officials in Moscow said Russian police may travel to Britain.

Ambassador suffers months of harassment and BBC service in Moscow mysteriously goes off the air after the Litvinenko murderThe Russian authorities yesterday stood accused of orchestrating a campaign of intimidation against British interests in Moscow, where the ambassador has been harassed and the BBC Russian Service mysteriously taken off air. With ties between the Kremlin and London already strained by the police inquiry into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, The Times has learnt that relations with Russia risk being further damaged by other serious diplomatic disputes. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said yesterday that it had complained to the...

No Mystery Here. You don’t need a convoluted device to explain Alexander Litvinenko’s demise. The poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, renegade Russian spy and fierce critic of Vladimir Putin’s government, is everywhere being called a mystery. There is dark speculation about unnamed “rogue elements” either in the Russian secret services or among ultra-nationalists acting independently of the government. There are whispers about the indeterminacy of things in the shadowy netherworld of Russian exile politics, crime and espionage. Well, you can believe in indeterminacy. Or you can believe the testimony delivered on the only reliable lie detector ever invented — the deathbed...

The poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, renegade Russian spy and fierce critic of Vladimir Putin's government, is everywhere being called a mystery. There is dark speculation about unnamed "rogue elements" either in the Russian secret services or among ultra-nationalists acting independently of the government. There are whispers about the indeterminacy of things in the shadowy netherworld of Russian exile politics, crime and espionage. Well, you can believe in indeterminacy. Or you can believe the testimony delivered on the only reliable lie detector ever invented —- the deathbed —- by the victim himself. Litvinenko directly accused Putin of killing him. Litvinenko knew...

LONDON, Dec. 7 — Seven bartenders at an upscale hotel in central London have tested positive for radioactive contamination, the British authorities said Thursday, raising new questions about the radiation poisoning death of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former Russian agent. In Moscow, Russia said it had opened its own criminal investigation into the death of Mr. Litvinenko, who was buried Thursday, two weeks after he died, in a private ceremony in London. Russian authorities also said a Russian businessman, Dmitri V. Kovtun, who was interviewed by British investigators in Moscow, was found to have signs of radioactive poisoning. In London,...

LONDON (Reuters) - Huddled against the December chill, the wife and young son of Alexander Litvinenko led a small crowd of mourners on Thursday at a private London funeral while confusion surrounded his deathbed conversion to Islam. Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky and separatist Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev, two of the Kremlin's most outspoken exiled critics, were among the six pallbearers who lowered Litvinenko into his grave at Highgate cemetery in north London. He was laid to rest two weeks after dying from radiation poisoning in a case that has revived echoes of the Cold War and raised tensions between London...

MOSCOW--Until a week ago, Alexander Litvinenko, a former colonel in the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, was virtually unknown outside the murky world of Russian intelligence. With his death in London from a massive dose of the radioactive element polonium 210, however, his fate may lead to a fundamentally different relationship between Russia and the West. Beginning with the Yeltsin era, two U.S. administrations have muted their criticism of Russia. This was the case even in the face of a series of political murders in Russia. But if Litvinenko, a British subject, was murdered by Russian intelligence on British...

British detectives have questioned a Russian businessman who entertained Alexander Litvinenko in a London hotel on the day the former spy fell ill. At the same time Scotland Yard confirmed that the investigation into Litvinenko’s death by radiation poisoning had become a murder inquiry. Police have been following the trail across London left by Dimitri Kovtun and his close friend, Andrei Lugovoy. It includes a number of locations where polonium-210 has been found. Mr Kovtun was interviewed by Russian prosecutors yesterday in the presence of the British detectives, who arrived in Moscow on Monday. He and and Mr Lugovoy were...

Radiation has been found at the British Embassy in Moscow, it emerged yesterday. On Monday, officials said a room there would be tested as a precaution after former KGB bodyguard Andrei Lugovoi went there to deny involvement in poisoning Alexander Litvinenko. Mr Lugovoi and another Russian businessman reportedly met former spy Mr Litvinenko at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, on November 1, the day he was apparently poisoned. A spokesman said: 'A team of experts have concluded a precautionary check of the British Embassy. 'They have found no danger to public health. Small traces of radiation were found...

British investigators are now treating the poisoning death of former Federal Security Service agent Alexander Litvinenko as murder. "It is important to stress that we have reached no conclusions as to the means employed, the motive or the identity of those who might be responsible for Mr. Litvinenko's death," Scotland Yard said in a statement.

Was ex-spy trying to sell dirty bomb? The radiation spy scandal took a sensational twist last night with the revelation that KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko had converted to Islam before he died. Scotland Yard detectives are now trying to discover if he had any secret links with Islamic extremist terror groups. Their biggest fear is that the former Soviet spy, who died of polonium-210 poisoning in a London hospital, may have been helping Al Qaeda terrorists or other extremist groups get hold of radioactive material to be used in a devastating “dirty” atom bomb. The news comes on top of...

MOSCOW, December 6, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- A team of British investigators today is continuing work on the case of Aleksandr Litvinenko. The former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer died in London last month from poisoning by the rare radioactive isotope polonium-210. Since then, British authorities have literally followed the polonium trail to more than a dozen locations in London, three British Airways jets, and a handful of potential suspects in Moscow.

Moscow refuses to extradite anyone tied to the death of former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London even if possible suspects are unearthed by a team of British investigators now in Russia, Prosecutor General Yury Chaika said Tuesday. "If they want to arrest them, it would be impossible," Chaika said at a news conference, referring to the investigators. "They are Russian citizens, and the Russian Constitution makes that impossible." The British investigators, from Scotland Yard, arrived in Moscow late Monday as part of the inquiry into the Nov. 23 poisoning death of Litvinenko, who had been a Federal Security Service...

Radioactive traces at Arsenal stadium December 6, 2006 - 12:11PM British investigators have found minute traces of polonium 210, the radioactive isotope that killed former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, at a London soccer stadium. The traces were found at the stadium of English Premier League club Arsenal. "Minute quantities [of polonium] were found at barely detectable levels at localised areas," said Health Protection Agency spokeswoman Katherine Lewis. "There is no risk to public health." British police are in Moscow investigating Litvinenko's death in a case that has strained ties between Britain and Russia since the exiled former spy on his...

LONDON: British intelligence services are convinced that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) was behind the poisoning of former spy Alexander Litvinenko. The FSB orchestrated a "highly sophisticated plot"and was likely to have used some of its former agents to carry out the operation on the streets of London, the Times said on Tuesday. "We know how the FSB operates abroad and, based on the circumstances behind the death of Litvinenko, the FSB has to be the prime suspect,"a source said. The involvement of a former FSB officer made it easier to lure Litvinenko to meetings at various locations and...

Russia named its price yesterday for providing help in the investigation into the death by poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. It demanded that Britain hand over the enemies of President Putin who have been given asylum in London.The ultimatum came as Russian officials imposed strict limits on how Scotland Yard detectives will be allowed to operate as they began their investigation in Moscow. The strict conditions threatened to deepen the diplomatic rift between Moscow and London caused by the death last month by radioactive polonium-210 poisoning of Litvinenko. John Reid, the Home Secretary, pledged this week that no diplomatic obstacles would...

PRAGUE, December 5, 2006 (RFE/RL) -- A team of British investigators has begun work in Moscow on the case of poisoned former Russian security officer Aleksandr Litvinenko. The investigators are in Moscow to question several Russians who met with Litvinenko in London, where he died after being poisoned with a radioactive isotope, polonium-210. It remains unclear if Litvinenko was intentionally poisoned. Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the London metropolitan police service, is not expected to comment while the investigation is under way. Religious Conversion Litvinenko's father, Valter, told RFE/RL's Russian Service his son converted to Islam shortly before his death...

Russia's spy agency vowed that former agent Alexander Litvinenko would be tracked down and killed just like renegade communist Leon Trotsky was murdered in Mexico more than 60 years ago, a colleague disclosed yesterday.

Intelligence services in Britain are convinced that the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko was authorised by the Russian Federal Security Service. Security sources have told The Times that the FSB orchestrated a “highly sophisticated plot” and was likely to have used some of its former agents to carry out the operation on the streets of London. “We know how the FSB operates abroad and, based on the circumstances behind the death of Mr Litvinenko, the FSB has to be the prime suspect,” a source said yesterday. The involvement of a former FSB officer made it easier to lure Mr Litvinenko to...

All Aglow THE trail of clues in the mysterious death of Alexander V. Litvinenko may lead to Moscow, as the former spy claimed on his deathbed. But solving the nuclear whodunit may prove harder than Scotland Yard and many scientists at first anticipated. The complicating factor is the relative ubiquity of polonium 210, the highly radioactive substance found in Mr. Litvinenko’s body and now in high levels in the body of an Italian associate, who has been hospitalized in London. Experts initially called it quite rare, with some claiming that only the Kremlin had the wherewithal to administer a lethal...

Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian intelligence agent poisoned in London, is to be buried according to Muslim tradition after converting to Islam on his deathbed. The spy's father, Walter Litvinenko, said in an interview published today that his son - who was born an Orthodox Christian but had close links to Islamist rebels in Chechnya - made the request as he lay dying in University College Hospital. "He said ’I want to be buried according to Muslim tradition’," Mr Litvinenko told Moscow's Kommersant daily. "I said, ’Well son, as you wish. We already have one Muslim in our family -...

LONDON - Britain's senior law enforcement official said Sunday an inquiry into the death of a former KGB agent had expanded overseas, and a U.S.-based friend of the former agent said he told police the name of the person he believes orchestrated the poisoning. Yuri Shvets said had known the poisoned ex-spy, Alexander Litvinenko, since 2002 and spoke with him on Nov. 23, the day Litvinenko died following his exposure to a rare radioactive element, polonium-210. "The truth is, we have an act of international terrorism on our hands. I happen to believe I know who is behind the death...

LONDON – Reports that KGB defector Alexander Litvinenko converted to Islam before his mysterious poisoning with radioactive polonium 210 is raising suspicions that he may have been involved in a plot to smuggle the deadly substance to terrorist groups willing to pay millions even for a gram, Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is reporting today. Scotland Yard detectives are now trying to discover if Litvinenko had any secret links with Islamic extremist terror groups, the London Sunday Express is reporting. Their biggest fear, the paper reports, is that Litvinenko, who died of polonium-210 poisoning in a London hospital, may have been...

LONDON, England (AP) -- An inquiry into the death of a poisoned ex-KGB spy was expanding outside Britain, the country's senior law and order official said Sunday, as investigators visited Washington and prepared to travel to Moscow. A potential witness in the investigation into the death of former Russian agent and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko had been interviewed in the United States and a team was ready to leave London for Russia within days, a police official said.

Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky has never made any secret of his loathing for President Vladimir Putin, but in an interview in his London exile the controversial tycoon went one step further with a vow to mount a coup. "President Putin violates the constitution and any violent action on the opposition's part is justified today, and that includes taking power by force, which is exactly what I am working at," the oligarch, looking vibrant despite five years in self-imposed exile, told AFP at his Piccadilly office. For the past 18 months, "we have been preparing to take power by force in...

The Observer has obtained remarkable testimony from a Russian academic, Julia Svetlichnaja, who met Litvinenko earlier this year and received more than 100 emails from him. ... He had asked Svetlichnaja, who is based in London, to enter into a business deal with him and 'make money'. We can also reveal that Scotland Yard officers involved in the investigation travelled to Washington to interview a former KGB agent, Yuri Shvets, who said he had vital information. He was a contact of Mario Scaramella, the Italian security consultant being treated at London's University College Hospital after having been found to have...

The Sunday Times ^ | December 3, 2006 | David Cracknell, Mark Franchetti and Jon Ungoed-Thomas

THE Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has expressed his anger at Britain’s failure to gag Alexander Litvinenko in the final hours of his life, the cabinet has been told.Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, told ministers that the Russian government had “taken exception” to the poisoned former spy’s deathbed letter accusing the Putin regime of murdering him. This weekend a potential suspect — Andrei Lugovoi — admitted he had been contaminated with the radioactive poison polonium-210 but insisted: “I’ve been framed.” Beckett, who spoke to her Russian counterpart before Thursday’s cabinet meeting, said the Russians had “seemingly failed to understand” that Litvinenko...

We first met beside the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus. Wearing dark glasses and leather jacket, Alexander Litvinenko appeared unexpectedly behind my back, saying: 'I was watching you from around the corner. You are not a spy, are you?' I suggested coffee in the nearby Caffe Nero, the first of our often chaotic, erratic conversations we would share from last April until his death. I asked various questions about the Chechen people in Moscow during the Eighties and Nineties. Litvinenko, though, leapt from one exotic story to another - secret operations in Afghanistan, a plot against Boris Yeltsin, the...

Russian president Vladimir Putin has expressed his anger at Britain's failure to gag Alexander Litvinenko in the final hours of his life, the cabinet has been told. Margaret Beckett, the foreign secretary, told ministers that the Russian government had “taken exception” to the poisoned former spy’s deathbed letter accusing the Putin regime of murdering him. This weekend a potential suspect — Andrei Lugovoi — admitted he had been contaminated with the radioactive poison polonium-210 but insisted: “I’ve been framed.” Beckett, who spoke to her Russian counterpart before Thursday’s cabinet meeting, said the Russians had “seemingly failed to understand” that Litvinenko...

Focus: Cracking the code of the nuclear assassin The nuclear poison used to kill Alexander Litvinenko has left a trail that appears to lead back to Moscow. It's a killing that could yet seriously undermine relations between Britain and Russia. You would be hard put to find better cover to assassinate an exiled Russian dissident. On Wednesday, November 1, hundreds of Russians were in London to watch Arsenal play CSKA Moscow in the Champions League. Among all the families, groups and individual supporters arriving from Moscow, a killer, or killers, could hope for anonymity. After the evening kick-off at the...

Test results on Mario Scaramella, the man feared to be the second victim of a Russian hit squad widely blamed for the death of spy Alexander Litvinenko, shows no sign of radiation poisoning. The Italian academic who met the ex-KGB man on the day he was allegedly poisoned, was admitted to hospital on Friday having tested positive for a "significant" quantity of the radioactive substance. Health chiefs confirmed on Friday night that Mr Scaramella had traces of deadly polonium 210, which is believed to have killed Mr Litvinenko, in his body. But doctors at London's University College Hospital have said...